I had a look at James Brutons design for bipedal
locomotion and Ive had a go at making a similar project
for my Android. Now I think it is possible to make a
simple human sized biped using a minimum number of
components.

I saw the new star wars film yesterday, you guys have to
see it. I actually think its the best one in the series!

When I was a kid star wars was part of the reason I got
interested in robotics in the first place. I always loved
the way Lucas made the droids look so natural and normal.

In this new flm R2D2 is seriously funky and has loads of
new features. I think Im going to dig out my old R2 unit
project and put some decent features on it. - I was
running out of imagination for my projects until I saw
this film, Its definately worth seeing.

I've had a bit of roboticists block recently. Its gone
now. I find that you start an ambitious robot project, you
build it half of it and test with some software. If youre
not careful Before you know it the test software turns
into the final app and you run out of ideas because you've
created a robot that only does what to you tell it to.

Well Im over that now. I've decided what I want my robot
to do and more or less how to do it. I used to rely on
windows to do all the control timings (bad move) anyhow Im
going to use PIC for all that now. Watch this space.....

Have you guys heard about the bizarre developments in
robotics in the United Arab Emirates? it sounds like
something out of Star Wars Pod racing or something. They
are trying to stop children from illegally riding camels
in races and are proposing to replace them with humanoid
robot jockeys (!?) see the link here

My girlfriend invited all of her friends round to my flat
to meet up because we were all going out for the day. I
was a little worried that with all the junk and stuff in
my room they'd take one look around and think I was a
computer geek or something. Not so at all! They came
round, saw the droid and insisted that I showed it to them
working, those girls wouldnt leave it alone after that!

I dont know if you guys ever get this but I think I've got
cyberneticists block at the moment. I used to find that
with mobile robots after you've built them you go back and
can make them do cool things like programming them to go
to a certain point in space and return, or use A* path
planning etc. With mobiles there is always something new
you can do with them.

I've found that with humaniod robots however after I've
built the basics of the torso, I get to a point where I
can program the arms and waist to go to different
locations, open/close grippers and things like that but I
dont know what else to do with it now. I've got cameras
and lasers and stuff like that but I think Im running out
of imagination....

Hi guys. Im about a quarter of the way through building a
humanoid robot. Its about the size of an average 10 year
old child. I was planning to use my own design of
servomotor for the leg joints for powered walking but I
came across this website

My girlfriend came round last night she got me I Robot for
valentines day. I saw it and I thought although it was
different to the book it was pretty good anyway.

Before she came I replaced the waist and neck joints of my
droid with ballbearing roller plates. Those joints move as
smoothly as anything. I showed the robot moving its arms
and other joints and she was pretty impressed. I think
it's gonna look good when I'm finished...

I've developed a super simple servomotor/speed controller
interface using only three transisors and a comparator. It
can be used to convert almost any DC motor into a
servomotor using standard PWM radio control signals. Im
planning on using the design to control the legs of my
droid. I did develop another servo design earlier, but it
was full of op-amps and too fiddly to set up. This one
just works...

I finally decided to bite the bullet and actaully start
doing something with the bits of android on my shelf. I've
built a servo waist joint and lead acid battery
compartment which both seem to work quite well.

I started playing with hip motors for the two legs
(810:1 ratio mind!). I dont know if the thing will balance
properly when I've finished it but I'm going to build it
just the same. I've ordered a pair of Hitec 815BB servos
for the shoulder joints which should allow the arms to
lift more than 200g. The old Hitec 715s were good but I
ended up burning one of them out with a dodgy PSU.

I swear I'm going to lose the deposit on my flat because
of all the metal swarf and solder in my carpet, but Oh
well, I cant help being a compulsive robot builder!